The Auschwitz complex of camps encompassed a
large industrial area rich in natural resources. There were 48 camps in all.
The three main camps were Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, and a work camp
called Auschwitz III-Monowitz, or the Buna. Auschwitz I served as the
administrative center, and was the site of the deaths of roughly 70,000 people,
mostly ethnic Poles and Soviet prisoners of war. Auschwitz II was an
extermination camp or Vernichtungslager, the site of the deaths of at
least 960,000 Jews, 75,000 Poles, and some 19,000 Roma (Gypsies). Auschwitz
III-Monowitz served as a labor camp for the Buna-Werke factory of the IG Farben
concern. The SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV) was the SS organization responsible
for administering the Nazi concentration camps for the Third Reich. The SS-TV
was an independent unit within the SS with its own ranks and command structure.
Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Höss was overall commandant of the Auschwitz complex
from May 1940–November 1943; Obersturmbannführer Arthur Liebehenschel from
November 1943–May 1944; and Sturmbannführer Richard Baer from May 1944–January
1945.

Yisrael Gutman writes that it was in the
concentration camps that Hitler's concept of absolute power came to fruition.
Primo Levi, who described his year in Auschwitz in If This Is a Man,
wrote:

Never
has there existed a state that was really "totalitarian." ... Never
has some form of reaction, a corrective of the total tyranny, been lacking, not
even in the Third Reich or Stalin's Soviet Union: in both cases, public
opinion, the magistrature, the foreign press, the churches, the feeling for
justice and humanity that ten or twenty years of tyranny were not enough to
eradicate, have to a greater or lesser extent acted as a brake. Only in the Lager
[camp] was the restraint from below non-existent, and the power of these small
satraps absolute.

Auschwitz 1

Auschwitz I was the original camp, serving as the
administrative centre for the whole complex. The site for the camp (16
one-story buildings) had earlier served as Polish army artillery barracks. It
was first suggested as a site for a concentration camp for Polish prisoners by
SS-Oberfuhrer Arpad Wigand, an aide to Higher SS and Police Leader for Silesia,
Erich von dem Bach Zelewski. Bach Zeleski had been searching for a site to
house prisoners in the Silesia region as the local prisons were filled to
capacity. Richard Glucks, head of the Concentration Camps Inspectorate, sent
former Sachsenhausen concentration camp commandant, Walter Eisfeld, to inspect
the site. Glucks informed SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler that a camp would be
built on the site on 21 February 1940. Rudolf Höss would oversee the
development of the camp and serve as the first commandant, SS-Obersturmführer
Josef Kramer was appointed Höss's deputy.

Local residents were evicted, including 1,200
people who lived in shacks around the barracks, creating an empty area of
40 km2, which the Germans called the "interest area of the
camp". 300 Jewish residents of Oświęcim were brought in to lay
foundations. From 1940 to 1941 17 000 Polish and Jewish residents from the
western districts of Oświęcim town, from places adjacent to Auschwitz
Concentration Camp was expelled. Germans ordered also expulsions from the villages
of Broszkowice, Babice, Brzezinka, Rajsko, Pławy, Harmęże, Bór, and Budy.The
expulsion of Polish civilians was a step towards establishing the Camp Interest
Zone, which was set up to isolate the camp from the outside world and to carry
out business activity to meet the needs of the SS. German and Volksdeutsche
settlers moved into some buildings whose Jewish population had been deported to
the ghetto.

The first prisoners (30 German criminal prisoners
from the Sachsenhausen camp) arrived in May 1940, intended to act as
functionaries within the prison system. The first transport of 728 Polish
prisoners which included 20 Jews arrived on 14 June 1940 from the prison in
Tarnow, Poland. They were interned in the former building of the Polish Tobacco
Monopoly adjacent to the site, until the camp was ready. The inmate population
grew quickly, as the camp absorbed Poland's intelligentsia and dissidents,
including the Polish underground resistance. By March 1941, 10,900 were
imprisoned there, most of them Poles.

The SS selected some prisoners, often German
criminals, as specially privileged supervisors of the other inmates (so-called kapos).
Although involved in numerous atrocities, only two Kapos were ever prosecuted
for their individual behaviour; many were deemed to have had little choice but
to act as they did.The various classes of prisoners were
distinguishable by special marks on their clothes; Jews and Soviet prisoners of
war were generally treated the worst. All inmates had to work in the associated
arms factories, except on Sundays, which were reserved for cleaning and
showering. The harsh work requirements, combined with poor nutrition and
hygiene, led to high death rates among the prisoners.

Block 11 of Auschwitz was the "prison within
the prison", where violators of the numerous rules were punished. Some
prisoners were made to spend the nights in "standing cells". These
cells were about 1.5 m2 (16 sq ft), and four men would be
placed in them; they could do nothing but stand, and were forced during the day
to work with the other prisoners. In the basement were located the
"starvation cells"; prisoners incarcerated here were given neither
food nor water until they were dead.

In the basement were the "dark cells";
these cells had only a very tiny window, and a solid door. Prisoners placed in
these cells would gradually suffocate as they used up all of the oxygen in the
cell; sometimes the SS would light a candle in the cell to use up the oxygen
more quickly. Many were subjected to hanging with their hands behind their
backs, thus dislocating their shoulder joints for hours, even days.

On September 3, 1941, deputy camp commandant SS-Hauptsturmführer
Fritzsch experimented on 600 Russian POWs and 250 Polish inmates by gathering
them in the basement of Block 11 and gassing them with Zyklon B, a highly
lethal cyanide-based pesticide. This paved the way for the use of Zyklon B as
an instrument for extermination at Auschwitz, and a gas chamber and crematorium
were constructed by converting a bunker. This gas chamber operated from 1941 to
1942, during which time some 60,000 people were killed therein; it was then
converted into an air-raid shelter for the use of the SS. This gas chamber
still exists, together with the associated crematorium, which was reconstructed
after the war using the original components, which remained on-site.

Auschwitz II-Birkenau

Construction on Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the
extermination camp, began in October 1941 to ease congestion at the main camp.
It was larger than Auschwitz I, and more people passed through its gates than
through Auschwitz I. It was designed to hold several categories of prisoners,
and to function as an extermination camp in the context of Heinrich Himmler's
preparations for the Final Solution of the Jewish Question, the extermination
of the Jews. The first gas chamber at Birkenau was "The Little Red
House," a brick cottage converted into a gassing facility by tearing out
the inside and bricking up the walls. It was operational by March 1942. A
second brick cottage, "The Little White House," was similarly
converted some weeks later.

The Nazis had committed themselves to the final
solution no later than January 1942, the date of the Wannsee Conference. In his
Nuremberg testimony on April 15, 1946, Rudolf Höss, the commandant of
Auschwitz, testified that Heinrich Himmler personally ordered him to prepare
Auschwitz for that purpose:

"In the summer of 1941 I was
summoned to Berlin to Reichsführer-SS Himmler to receive personal orders. He
told me something to the effect—I do not remember the exact words—that the
Fuehrer had given the order for a final solution of the Jewish question. We,
the SS, must carry out that order. If it is not carried out now then the Jews
will later on destroy the German people. He had chosen Auschwitz on account of
its easy access by rail and also because the extensive site offered space for
measures ensuring isolation."

British historian Laurence Rees writes, that Höss
may have misremembered the year Himmler said this. Himmler did indeed visit
Höss in the summer of 1941, but there is no evidence that the final solution
had been planned at this stage. Rees writes that the meeting predates the
killings of Jewish men by the Einsatzgruppen in the East and the expansion of
the killings in July 1941. It also predates the Wannsee Conference. Rees
speculates that the conversation with Himmler was most likely in the summer of
1942. The first gassings, using an industrial gas derived from prussic acid and
known by the brand name Zyklon-B, were carried out at Auschwitz in September
1941.

In early 1943, the Nazis decided to increase
greatly the gassing capacity of Birkenau. Crematorium II, originally designed
as a mortuary, with morgues in the basement and ground-level furnaces, was
converted into a killing factory by placing a gas-tight door on the morgues and
adding vents for Zyklon B and ventilation equipment to remove the gas.It went into operation in March. Crematorium III was
built using the same design. Crematoria IV and V, designed from the start as
gassing centres, were also constructed that spring. By June 1943 all four
crematoria were operational. Most of the victims were killed during the period
afterwards.

The camp was staffed partly by prisoners, some of
whom were selected to be kapos (orderlies, most of whom were convicts)
and sonderkommandos (workers at the crematoria). The kapos were
responsible for keeping order in the barrack huts; the sonderkommandos
prepared new arrivals for gassing (ordering them to remove their clothing and
surrender their personal possessions) and transferred corpses from the gas
chambers to the furnaces, having first pulled out any gold that the victims
might have had in their teeth. Members of these groups were killed
periodically. The kapossonderkommandos were supervised by
members of the SS; altogether 6,000 SS members worked at Auschwitz.

The largest of the Auschwitz work camps was Auschwitz III-Monowitz, named
after the Polish village of Monowice, and regarded from the fall of 1943
onwards as an industrial camp. Starting operations in May 1942, it was
associated with the synthetic rubber and liquid fuel plant Buna-Werke
owned by IG Farben. 11,000 slave laborers worked at Monowitz. Seven thousand
inmates worked at various chemical plants. 8,000 worked in mines. Approximately
40,000 prisoners worked in slave labor camps at Auschwitz or nearby, under
appalling conditions.In
regular intervals, doctors from Auschwitz II would visit the work camps and
select the weak and sick for the gas chambers of Birkenau.

Auschwitz

Auschwitz-Birkenau
became the killing centre where the largest numbers of European Jews
were killed. After an experimental gassing there in September 1941 of
850 malnourished and ill prisoners, mass murder became a daily routine.
By mid 1942, mass gassing of Jews using Zyklon-B began at Auschwitz ,
where extermination was conducted on an industrial scale with some
estimates running as high as three million persons eventually killed
through gassing, starvation, disease, shooting, and burning ...

9
out of 10 were Jews. In addition, Gypsies, SovietPOWs, and ill
prisoners of all nationalities died in the gas chambers. Between May 14
and July 8,1944, 437,402 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz in 48
trains. This was probably the largest single mass deportation during
the Holocaust.

Auschwitz/Birkenau,
Nazi Germany's largest concentration and extermination camp facility,
was located nearby the provincial Polish town of Oshwiecim in Galacia.
Auschwitz was established by order of Heinrich Himmler on 27 April 1940.

In Hermann Langbein's Menschen in Auschwitz Lucie Adelsberger describes the life of the children at Auschwitz:

"Like
the adults, the kids were only a mere bag of bones, without muscles or
fat, and the thin skin like pergament scrubbed through and through
beyond the hard bones of the skeleton and ignited itself to ulcerated
wounds. Abscesses covered the underfed body from the top to the bottom
and thus deprived it from the last rest of energy. The mouth was deeply
gnawed by noma-abscesses, hollowed out the jaw and perforated the cheeks
like cancer.

Many
decaying bodies were full of water because of the burning hunger, they
swelled to shapeless bulks which could not move anymore. Diarrhoea,
lasting for weeks, dissolved their irresistant bodies until nothing
remained .."

At Auschwitz children were generally killed upon arrival. Children born in the camps were generally killed on the spot.

So
called camp doctors, especially the notorious Josef Mengele, would
torture Jewish children, Gypsy children and many others. "Patients" were
put into pressure chambers, tested with drugs, castrated, frozen to
death, and exposed to various other traumas.

A
survivor, Eva Mozes Kor, later recalled how a set of Gypsy twins was
brought back from Mengele's lab after they were sewn back to back.
Mengele had attempted to create a Siamese twin by connecting blood
vessels and organs. The twins screamed day and night until gangrene set
in, and after three days, they died ...

At Auschwitz Professor Carl Clauberginjected
chemical substances into wombs during his experiments. Thousands of
Jewish and Gypsy women were subjected to this treatment. They were
sterilized by the injections, producing horrible pain, inflamed ovaries,
bursting spasms in the stomach, and bleeding. Men
and women were positioned repeatedly for several minutes between two
x-ray machines aimed at their sexual organs. Most subjects died or were
gassed immediately.
Men's testicles were removed and sent to Breslau for histopathological
examination.

Likewise at Auschwitz Dr. Herta Oberhauser killed children with oil
and evipan injections, removed their limbs and vital organs, rubbed
ground glass and sawdust into
wounds.

Near
the end of the war, in order to cut expenses and save gas, "cost-
accountant considerations" led to an order to place living children
directly into the ovens or throw them into open burning
pits.

After WW2, in October of 1946, the Nuremberg Medical Trial began,
lasting until August of 1947. Twenty-tree German physicians and
scientists were accused of performing vile and potentially lethal
medical experiments on concentration camps inmates and other living
human subjects between 1933 and 1945. Mengele was not amongst the
accused.

Fifteen
defendants were found guilty, and eight were acquitted. Of the 15,
seven were given the death penalty and eight imprisoned. Herta
Oberhauser, the doctor who had rubbed crushed glass and sawdust into the
wounds of her subjects, received a 20 year sentence but was released in
April 1952 and became a family doctor at Stocksee in Germany. Her
license to practice medicine was revoked in 1958.

Carl
Clauberg was put to trial in the Soviet Union and sentenced to 25
years. 7 years later, he was pardonned under the "returnee" arrangement
between Bonn and Moscow and went back to West Germany. Upon returning he
held a press conference and boasted of his scientific work at
Auschwitz. After survivor groups protested, Clauberg was finally
arrested in 1955 but died in August 1957, shortly before his trial
should have
started.

After the war it appeared that only one man managed to get prisoners out of Auschwitz, the Gate to
Hell - Oscar Schindler, one remarkable man who outwittedAdolf Hitlerand the Nazis to save more Jews from the gas chambers than most of the heroic rescuers during WWII ...

Source: The Archives of

United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Zyklon Bis a cyanide-based poisonous gas which interferes with cellular
respiration. Specifically, it prevents the cell from producing ATP by
binding to the one of the proteins involved in the electron transport
chain. This protein, cytochrome c oxidase, contains several subunits and
has ligands containing iron groups. At one of these iron groups, heme
a3, the cyanide component of Zyklon B can bind, forming a more
stabilized compound through metal-to-ligand pi bonding. As a result of
this new iron-cyanide complex, the electrons which would situate
themselves on the heme a3 group can no longer do so. Instead, because of
the new bond formed between the iron and the cyanide, these electrons
would actually destabilize the compound (based on molecular orbital
theory); thus, the heme group will no longer accept them. Consequently,
electron transport is halted, and the cell can no longer produce the
energy needed to synthesize ATP.

Use By The Nazis

Zyklon B was used by Nazi Germany to poison
prisoners in the gas chambers of their network of extermination camps
throughout Europe. Zyklon B was used at Auschwitz Birkenau, Majdanek,
Sachsenhausen and one of the Operation Reinhard camps [which one?]. At the
other extermination camps, carbon monoxide from engine exhaust was used in the
gas chambers or mobile gas vans. Most of the victims were Jews and the Zyklon B
gas became a central symbol of the Holocaust.

Zyklon B was used in the concentration camps also
for delousing to control typhus. The chemical used in the gas chambers was
deliberately made without the warning odorant. In quantitative terms, more than
95% of the Zyklon B delivered to Auschwitz was used for delousing and less than
5% in the homicidal gas chambers.

In January or February 1940, 250 Gypsy children
from Brno in the Buchenwald concentration camp were used as guinea pigs for
testing the Zyklon B gas. On September 3, 1941, around 600 Soviet prisoners of
war and 250 sick Polish prisoners were gassed with Zyklon B at Auschwitz camp
I; this was the first experiment with the gas at Auschwitz. The experiments
lasted more than 20 hours.

According to Rudolf Höss, commandant of
Auschwitz, bunker 1 held 800 people, and bunker 2 held 1,200. Once the chamber
was full, the doors were screwed shut and solid pellets of Zyklon B were
dropped into the chambers through vents in the side walls, releasing the
cyanide gas. Those inside died within 20 minutes; the speed of death depended
on how close the inmate was standing to a gas vent, according to Höss, who
estimated that about one third of the victims died immediately.Johann
Kremer, an SS doctor who oversaw the gassings, testified that: "Shouting
and screaming of the victims could be heard through the opening and it was
clear that they fought for their lives." When they were removed, if the
chamber had been very congested, as they often were, the victims were found
half-squatting, their skin coloured pink with red and green spots, some foaming
at the mouth or bleeding from the ears.

Medical Experiments

During the reign of Adolf Hitler Europe was taken into a
state of chaos. Doctors were called to the extermination camps such as Auschwitz
and Dachau. The reason was simple to them. They thought they were there to
try to unlock secrets of genetic engineering but today it seems they were
there just to kill camp inmates as painfully as possible. People have
called these horrific experiments "The results of some peoples ambitious
and zealousness to the Nazi vision of Ayran supremacy."

EXPERIMENTS

FREEZING/ HYPOTHERMIA These experiments were divided into two parts. First to see
the time it takes to lower the body temperature until death will come.
Next, was to see how best to revive the frozen victims. These experiments
were held to try and stimulate the conditions that the German soldiers
were suffering on the Eastern front. Some patients were placed into icy
vats full of cold water. While others were strapped to stretchers and
placed outside in Auschwitz's sub-zero temperatures, naked. Most victims
died or lost consciousness when their body temperature dropped to 25 degrees
Celsius.

During the reign of Adolf Hitler Europe was taken into a
state of chaos. Doctors were called to the extermination camps such as Auschwitz
and Dachau. The reason was simple to them. They thought they were there to
try to unlock secrets of genetic engineering but today it seems they were
there just to kill camp inmates as painfully as possible. People have
called these horrific experiments "The results of some peoples ambitious
and zealousness to the Nazi vision of Ayran supremacy."

EXPERIMENTS

FREEZING/ HYPOTHERMIA

These experiments were divided into two parts. First to see
the time it takes to lower the body temperature until death will come.
Next, was to see how best to revive the frozen victims. These experiments
were held to try and stimulate the conditions that the German soldiers
were suffering on the Eastern front. Some patients were placed into icy
vats full of cold water. While others were strapped to stretchers and
placed outside in Auschwitz's sub-zero temperatures, naked. Most victims
died or lost consciousness when their body temperature dropped to 25 degrees
Celsius.

SUN LAMP

Many experiments were conducted to try to find a way of
reviving the victims that survived the freezing experiments. One test was
called the Sun Lamp. Patients were placed under lamps that were extremely
hot and would sometimes burn the skin. One young man was repeatedly cooled
to unconsciousness then revived by the Sun Lamps until he was pouring
sweat. He died after many tests were taken.

HOT BATH

This method seemed to prove the best way to revive victims
after their body temperature was cooled. The patients were placed in warm
water that would slowly increase, and raise the body temperature. If the
water was too hot the victim would die from shock. One other method, that
was suggested by Heinrich Himmler, was to try to use women to warm some of
the frozen victims. There was some successes in this, but it was not as efficient
as the Hot Bath.

INTERNAL IRRIGATION

For this experiment water was heated to a hot temperature
that was close to blistering. Then the doctors would forcefully irrigate
this hot water into the frozen victim's stomach, bladder, and their
intestines. All of the victims appear to have died from this testing.

GENETIC EXPERIMENTS

These experiments were very broad and specialized. They
were conducted to "refine the master race" and to determine the
causes of defects. Dr. Josef Mengele's research on the twins and other
Auschwitz inmates was based on genetics.

Dr. Josef Mengele began his research in May of 1943 at
Auschwitz, Poland. Mengele's experiments were funded through a grant by
the German Research Council. He was fascinated by twins, dwarfs,
cripples, and what he called " exotic specimens". Mengele had a
special likeness for the younger twins. He was known to give them special
care, like extra food and clothing and he allowed them to keep their hair.
He would even give them candy when they were corporative. Despite the fact that some
survivors can call him a nice man that would act like their father,
Mengele is more famously known as the "Angel of Death".

Mengele was also fascinated by eyes and eye color. Mengele
tried to change the color of patients eyes genetically by injecting
dye into their eyes. This usually resulted in painful infections and even
blindness. After a victim would die, he took out their eyes and would tack
them onto the wall in his office. He would also take blood samples from
one twin then put the sample in the other twin. This mostly caused headaches
and high fevers for several days. Mengele placed patients in isolation
cages and subjected them to a variety of stimuli just to see their
reactions. He would inject twins with infectious agents to watch how long
it takes to succumb to various diseases. He removed victims limbs in
surgical procedures with out any anesthetic. Mengele also castrated and
sterilized almost all of the twins. After Mengele collected all the data
he wanted from a patient, they were killed by a single injection of
chloroform in the heart. He would take special care to make sure that twins
were killed at the same time. Then they were dissected and their organs
were taken to research centers.

HUNGARIAN TWINS

One pair of unfortunate Hungarian twins arrived at
Auschwitz late in 1943. They were taken to Josef Mengele right away. The
pair was described as athletic, handsome, around the age of eighteen, and
of having lots of body hair. Mengele took several days to examine the
Hungarian twins. He had their whole body closely measured and x-rayed and
had them be photographed in several different positions including standing
with their arms up in order to photograph their underarm hair. He then had
tubes forced down their noses and into their lungs and then they were
ventilated with gas. This caused them to cough so badly that they had to
be restrained. The twin's saliva was collected and examined.

For the experiment the twins were set in hot water until
they almost passed out. Then Mengele had them strapped onto tables and had
their hair plucked out; they had to be placed back into the hot water
several times. Next, they were totally shaven off of any hair that was
still remaining and photographed again. After many other traumas, that
were quite disgusting, the pair of young Hungarians were injected in there
hearts with poison. They were dead after only three weeks at Auschwitz.
Their organs were dissected and sent to the Institute of Biological Racial
and Evolutionary Research in Berlin.

Dr. Herta Oberheuser, in order to kill them, would inject
oil and evipan into children's blood streams. While the children were
still conscious, she removed their vital organs and limbs with no anesthetics.
They usually had about 3-5 minutes before death would come. Herta also
focused on inflicting wounds that were similar to the wounds the German
soldiers got on patients. She would then rub objects such as; glass, wood,
rusty nails, and sawdust into the wounds. Herta was the only female defendant
at the Nuremberg Medical Trials. She received a 20 year sentence, but only
served 10. After being released in the April of 1952, she became a family
doctor in Stocksee, Germany. Her license was revoked in 1958.

DR. JOHANN KREMER

Dr. Johann Kremer replaced a sick doctor on August 30, 1942 at
Auschwitz. Kremer's job was to carry out assessments of prisoners trying
to gain entrance into the hospital; he ordered most of them to be killed
by phenol injection. Kremer would often question prisoners before they
were injected. He asked things like their weight before imprisonment and
what medicines taken before imprisonment. He then would sometimes have
them photographed. Kremer kept a diary of the gassings he witnessed at
Auschwitz. Here is one entry:

September 5, 1942

"In the morning attended a special
action* from the women's concentration camp (Muslims*); the most dreadful
of horrors. ... In the evening towards 8:00 attended another special
action from Holland. Because of the special rations they get a fifth of a
liter of schnapps, 5 cigarettes, 100g Salami and bread, the men all clamor
to take part in such actions. Today and tomorrow (Sunday) work."

* the gassings were referred to as "special
actions"

* the women's camp was generally known as
"Muslims"

DR. KARL BRANDT

Dr. Karl Brandt was Hitler's personal physician and the
became the highest authority, the Reich Commissioner for Sanitation and
Health. Karl participated in the euthanasia program which was the
execution by gas or lethal injections in nursing homes, hospitals, and
asylums to the aged, the insane, the incurably ill, and deformed children.
Brandt called them "useless eaters" that burdened the German war
machine. Brandt was found guilty of war crimes at the Nuremberg Medical
Trials and was executed on June 2, 1948, at Landsburg prison in Bavaria.

Dr. Carl Clauberg arrived at Auschwitz in the December of
1942; he received Block 10 for his medical experiments. Clauberg injected
chemical substances into wombs of thousands of Jewish and Gypsy women. The
injections caused them sterilization, horrible pain, inflamed ovaries,
bursting spasms in their stomachs, and bleeding. Clauberg also repeatedly
placed men and women between two x-ray machines for several minutes,
resulting in radiation burns that made them either unfit for work and to be
gassed or they would die from the burns. He was sentenced to twenty-five years in a
Soviet Union Trial but after seven years he was pardoned. Clauberg
then held a press conference where he boasted about his scientific work at
Auschwitz. Survivor groups protested and Clauberg was arrested in 1955 and
died in the August of 1957 shortly before his trial was to begin.